Town hall in Ostellato, Italy (source: Pivari.com, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons)Founded in 2021, Fri-El Geo is the geothermal business under the Italian renewable energy company Fri-El Group. Fri-El Geo recently presented the Pangea project with which it aims to build geothermal plants to generate heat and power for population centers and industrial areas throughout the country particularly in Lombardy, Veneto, and Emilia Romagna.
Fifteen (15) particular sites have been identified for the Pangea project, for which the company has acquired exploratory permits that guarantee exclusive rights to install the plants for the next six years. Fri-El Geo is positioning itself as the first mover in a geothermal market using binary power plant technology and mid-enthalpy resources in Italy.
The group is currently already at the advanced stages of developing the first industrial plant in Ostellato which is expected to start supplying heat by early next year. Subsurface data in this area have been made available by thousands of surveys carried out to extract oil and gas in the 1950s to 60s. The geothermal plant in Ostellato is expected to have a capacity of 240 MW of thermal energy and 30 MW of electricty.
Ernst Gostner from the Fri-El Group was part of the Geothermal Technical Table that met with Italy’s Minister of the Environment and Energy Security Gilberto Pichetto Fratin earlier this year. Among the points discussed in the meeting were the geothermal potential of Italy, the industry’s 2030 objectives, and the measures necessary to get the geothermal sector off the ground.
